by Lou Cameron
Gaston shrugged and said, “A touch of malaria. I’ve had it for years and it comes and goes.”
“Jesus, are you going to be able to go on?”
“But of course. One does what one has to, hein? Everyone who lives in the tropics picks it up after a while. But look at the bright side. A doctor once assured me malaria makes me immune to syphilis.”
“I noticed. I might have known you weren’t just being heroic with Bebe back in the city.”
“Ah, you saw the old scars between her thighs, eh? Bebe never had syphilis. She’d been exposed to tropical yaws as a child. Fortunately, malaria cures yaws, too.”
“Jesus, you and that colored girl both had malaria?”
“But of course. As you see, it comes and goes. I remember, one night, Bebe came down with the fever as I was making love to her. It was quite interesting, for me. Bebe was delirious and inspired to astounding positions. It was as I had her draped over the table she told me she was a police informer. If we could infect Chino with the fever, there’s no telling what Sor Pantera might get out of him.”
Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “I doubt if she’ll learn much, but they might get chummy. He’s from a rival guerrilla group, and this divide-and-conquer shit must cease. The Panamanians have enough to worry about without killing one another.”
“Ah, you’d take all the fun out of our profession if people down here stopped killing one another. How did you find out so much about Chino?”
“We’ve been talking about it as he packed my Maxim. Sir Basil sold his group another story, too complicated to worry about, since it was all bullshit. Chino’s agreed to work with us until we get out of this jungle.”
“How do you know we can trust him?”
“We can’t, once he makes contact with his own bunch. Here in the jungle with us, he has no choice. He’s t smart enough to see the Army was out to kill him, too. He did volunteer a little. Hakim gave him some tricky paint that glows in the dark. Blanca sent one of her San Bias off with it to blaze a false trail before rejoining us in the hills to the north.”
Gaston nodded and said, “We should be back in the coastal swamps in a day or so, at the rate we’re going. But why we want to go there eludes me. These girls keep telling me their fishing village was taken over by some rather brutal soldiers.”
“Not soldiers, guerrillas. Chino says they’re not from his outfit. We know they’re not Balboas.”
“Merde! How many rebel factions do they have in such a small country?”
“That’s one of the things I want to find out. The central government in Bogota couldn’t hold this isthmus a month if all these frothing-at-the-mouth liberators ever got together long enough to oppose them.”
“Ah, then our mission is to find this other group and either make friends with them or wipe them out?”
“Something like that. They seem to be landing guns along the coast. If we can’t work out a deal, at least we’ll pick up some ammo and get the place back for the Indians.”
Gaston suddenly shivered and motioned to the Indian girl with the palm leaf to stop fanning him. He said, “Brrr! All of a sudden I have a chill. But this, too, will pass. To get back to more important matters, I’ve been meaning to ask you a rather delicate question.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Dick, what the fuck are we doing here? You and I are professionals surrounded by rank amateurs. There’s no pay and we have to supply ourselves on the fly like bandits. One must admit the distinction between a bandit and a guerrilla tends to blur, down here, but this whole thing is getting most ridiculous.”
“Yeah. As I recall, when you recruited me, you said something about us getting paid, sooner or later.”
“I lied. I didn’t know I did, at the time, but that is neither here nor there. If there was ever any organization to the Balboa Brigade, it’s finished. The handful we’re with are only little people.”
“I know. I’m a little people, too. And I don’t like to be licked. We’ve been used, Gaston. You, me, the Balboas, even Chino. The big boys playing chess for Panama set us up as pawns, and I don’t like it.”
“Nobody is asking you to like it, my old and rare. But what can any pawn do?”
“He can try to screw up the game. You’re right about one thing, Gaston. These people, Indian or Creole, haven’t a chance without some professional help. I can’t run out on them until I see they’re going to be okay.”
“Merde! This idealism of yours is most fatiguing. I think I am either about to die or go to sleep.”
Captain Gringo started to order the one sister who spoke Spanish to help Gaston to his hammock, but the little San Bias had anticipated and the two of them got on either side to help the Frenchman.
Captain Gringo walked away to continue his last tour of the camp before turning in. Sor Pantera caught up with him between fires and whispered, “I have been flirting with Chino and I think I’ll be able to seduce him.”
She lowered her eyes and added, “For the good of the cause, of course. I would much rather spend the night with you.”
He patted her shoulder and lied, “Me, too. But you’re a woman of the world, Sor Pantera. You know we have to keep Blanca and Chino under observation, and at times like this we must make sacrifices.”
“I know. I could never behave so improperly if I didn’t keep reminding myself it was for Panama!”
He sent her on her way and grinned wryly as he lit a last smoke. He’d wondered, before, if the enthusiasm for revolution in this part of the world might not be the result of strict Hispanic upbringing. The people were less inclined to theft and adultery than most Americans, in peacetime. Given a revolution, all bets were off.
The life of a guerrilla was fun, if you left out getting shot. A proper widow like Sor Pantera got to run around packing a gun and acting like an unwashed slut, in the name of patriotism. Chino had said he’d worked on the docks as a tally man before joining the rebels. Old Hernando had made cigars. They’d probably all gone to church every Sunday, too. He wondered, if and when they got their independence and the canal, if things would settle down again. It didn’t seem too likely.
Blanca was waiting for him in their hut. She’d greased herself with a pungent vegetable oil she said was good for bugs, and the floor was covered with fuzzy leaves. He asked her why and she said they were in chigger country. The little biting mites infested the higher and drier ground as they approached the coastal ranges, but the fuzzy leaves attracted and trapped the nasty little brutes.
He hung his clothes high, to keep them away from the chiggers, and climbed in the hammock with her. The foreplay was interesting. It reminded him of the time, as a boy, he’d tried to catch the greased pig at the county fair. The prize was better. Now that she’d decided to submit to him, Blanca was getting to be a nice sex partner. They made love “old-fashioned” and cuddled together in the hammock like old friends instead of show-offs. She seemed quite pleased with him, now that they’d established she was to get credit with her Indians for “her” leadership. She said her warriors were quite impressed at her newfound wisdom.
He held her and said, “I’ve been thinking of how you could be an even greater bruja, Bianca. You know, of course, how your tribe has been nearly killed off. Once you roamed the whole Spanish Main as fishermen and pirates. Now there can’t be more than a few hundred of you left, and in a generation or so—”
“I know. We’ll all be gone. The Christians will have our pearl beds, our salt marshes, everything. Sometimes this makes me cry at night. But what are we to do?”
“You’re going to have to learn new ways. I don’t mean the new ways the missionaries tried to teach you, Blanca. I know you can’t live as white people do. You must be free to hunt and fish as always, under your own gods and following your own customs.”
“This is true. But everyone hates us. When the missionaries held me captive they said my parents were evil people who ate human flesh and worshiped El Diablo. They will nev
er leave us in peace. So we must go on, in our own way, until the last San Bias has died, well, in battle with the strangers.”
He patted her shoulder and said, “Listen to me, Blanca. In my old country there were other Indians and I was a soldier. Many Indians in my own land tried to fight the white man. Most of the Indians are gone, now. But there are others, still living much as they wish to, on their own lands. They call these lands reservations.”
She grimaced and said, “I have heard of those things. You Yanquis forced your own Indians on to useless little plots of barren ground and left them there to starve.”
“That’s only partly true, Blanca. Some American tribes did get the short end of the stick. Others made out pretty well. Some tribes kept their original land. Some have reservations bigger than all of Panama.”
“Can this be true? The more fortunate Indians in your land must have had great brujas or powerful casiques!”
“Let me tell you about one. His name was Seattle. His people lived by fishing, as yours do. When the white men came to his lands his warriors wanted to fight, and he had many warriors. The white men were willing to fight him, too. But Seattle had a better idea.”
“Ah, I’ll bet he put a curse on them and made them all fall down.”
“No. He met with some white people and they talked. Seattle said he and his people could live as neighbors with the white men, or they could fight a long costly war with them. The white men were wise, too, so they asked what Seattle wanted, and when they saw both sides could live their own way without fighting, it was all put down on paper. The Indians were allowed to fish as always on certain streams. They kept their village sites and best places for hunting and gathering wild roots they liked. The white people built houses and farmed on other lands Seattle said they could have. Today both races live side by side without fighting. The white men named a city after Seattle to honor him.”
Blanca thought before she said, “I’ll bet the white people still got most of his land.”
He sighed and said, “That’s for damned sure. But the point is, he saved something for his people. There were other chiefs who tried it your way. Their people wound up with nothing, or had to move where the Army told them to. When I left my country the last Apache were being hunted down, and God knows what will become of them. But one night we rode into a town called Taos. It’s the oldest town in North America. Indians built it before Columbus. It’s still there, and still an Indian town. The Pueblo tribes bent just enough to learn to live with white people, but not enough to break themselves as a proud people. They live as they wish and reject our civilization without having to fight it. It’s the only way to stay Indian, honey.”
“I don’t like this talk about bending. What is it you suggest for my San Bias?”
“You’ve managed to make friends with these rebels. They are only a small band among many. In a few years Panama will have a new government, and the men who fought the revolution will owe favors to their friends. If I could tell Sor Pantera and her friends you were on their side, I think they’d speak up for you when the new government is formed. If they set aside your coastal lands and offshore keys as a San Bias reservation, you would be left to live in peace.”
“You mean no missionaries could bother us? That would be nice.”
“You’ll want self-government if you intend to keep strangers out of your fishing villages. You’ll need trading contacts to sell the pearls from your lagoons, too. The white men would pay a lot of money for the pearls you use as beads and playthings for your children. Both sides would be better off.”
“Perhaps. But I don’t like the idea of pretending to like the damned Christians.”
“I thought you were a clever bruja, You already speak Spanish. If your people ever agree to making peace with the Panamanians, they will need someone like you to speak for them in the government.”
Blanca gasped, “Me? In Panama City? All dressed up like a Spanish lady, making speeches?”
He chuckled and said, “Yeah. I think you’d be good at it, too.”
“Oh dear, would I have to wear shoes and live in a casa?”
“Just while you were there, speaking for your tribe. The rest of the time you could live as you like, naked in a hammock with whomsoever.”
She thought and said, “Well, it would be a change for me, once in a while. I’ll have to think about it. Would you teach me some more about the way Christians kiss? I may have to make love to some people in the government, someday, and I couldn’t want them to think I was ignorant.”
He laughed and kissed her as he ran his free hand over her oiled body. The poor bastards in Panama City would have a time trying to screw this little Indian out of anything.
He knew she’d go along with his suggestion, sooner or later. The Panamanians would go for it, too. Bogota was going to lose the isthmus simply because they weren’t realistic about conditions down here in the lowlands. Any faction who won would be smart, and smart people never made needless trouble for themselves. As wild Indians the San Bias promised to be tougher to clean out than Apache. As allies, they’d come in handy to anyone hoping to build a canal or anything else through these jungles.
And so, feeling rather pleased with himself, Captain Gringo made love to the little pink bruja. He had plenty of time to figure out what to do about the rest of the country.
Chapter Eighteen
Gaston was too sick to walk across the San -Bias Mountains, so they carried him in a litter. He cursed and raved in French, Spanish, and English, but fortunately nobody took it personally. The things he told them to do with their mothers were sometimes amusing and more often physical impossibilities. He confessed to incredible crimes against man and nature, recited dirty poetry, and confided he was the bastard of King Louis. He didn’t remember which one.
He’d recovered by the time they’d crossed the mountains and were moving through a maze of trails and sloughs in the mangrove swamps to the north. He caught up with Captain Gringo during a trail break and sat beside him quietly for a time before he asked, “What am I doing here? If you’d had any sense, you’d have left me behind when my legs gave out.”
“Is that what you wanted us to do, Gaston?”
“Of course not, but I’ll be double damned if I’d have carried you over a mountain range if you hadn’t been able to keep up. You are never going to make a real soldier until you drop these ridiculous ideals of yours!”
“Oh, knock it off. The Indians say we’re getting near the guys who ran them off. I’ve sent Little Turtle ahead to scout. Heard what might have been rifle shots, a while back. I’m trying to figure out what they might mean.”
Gaston shrugged and said, “I heard nothing. But my ears are still ringing. It feels like I’ve been overdosed with quinine.”
“You have. There were lots of cinchona trees in the hills we just came over. Chicle and cocoa, too. This could be a rich country if they only ran it right. But getting back to the shots I heard, they were a couple of miles off. Sounded like someone hunting. Not enough gunfire for a skirmish, too many shots for a reasonable hunter. Blanca says there are a few deer and wild pigs along the coast. But—”
He broke off as the sound of a single shot echoed in the distance. Gaston nodded and said, “High-powered rifle. Not a hunter. By now, in broad daylight, anything worth shooting at with a rifle would have left for parts unknown after hearing those first shots.”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “Right. But it still doesn’t sound like a gunfight. So what’s left?”
“Sniper,” Gaston decided, adding, “Someone has someone else pinned down, up ahead. Every time the party of the second part tries to move from cover.”
There was another distant crack and he nodded, adding, “Same gun, .30 caliber. Probably American. Du-Pont powder has a certain crack to it, after you’ve heard it a few times.”
A pair of Indians came out of the mangroves and called out. Blanca moved to join them, listened, and trotted over to Gaston and Capt
ain Gringo. She said, “Some men are trying to kill a boat. One of your small white boats with a smoking pipe is cut off from the sea by the sandbar our old village sat on. The village is gone. Some men have built a fort of boxes and they are shooting at the ones on the boat.”
“A falling-out among thieves?” suggested Gaston. Captain Gringo asked Blanca to have the scouts draw him a map in the sand and asked where Little Turtle was. She said her chief scout was still observing the gun runner’s whatever and called the others over. At Blanca’s direction they sketched a crude map of the lagoon, the trapped steam launch, and the dug-in positions on the point. They said they’d seen no other boats, and the men onshore were cut off, too, on the point of land. As they redescribed the boxes, he nodded and said, “I think I get the picture. The gun runners are pulling out for some reason.”
Blanca asked, “Why are they shooting at each other?”
He replied, “I think the argument’s about room in the boat. Let’s go see. They don’t seem to have posted guards on the landward side. We’ll move in, cut them off, and see if they want to talk.”
“Can’t we just kill them all? Some of them were very unkind to my people.”
“We may have to, Blanca. But let’s find out which side we’re on, first. Your enemies could be the men onshore or the men on the boat.”
“Oh. That does make sense, now that I think about it. You white people have such complicated wars.”
Captain Gringo got to his feet and called the others in for a quick tactical meeting. He explained the situation and said he’d take the point. Chino walked over with the Maxim gun, but the tall American took it from him and said, “I’ll carry it. I want you to stay here with Sor Pantera and about a third of her guys, in, uh, reserve.”
Chino asked, “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?” and the tall American just smiled.
